Objective: Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who have compulsive hoarding behavior are clinically different from other OCD-affected individuals. The objective of this study was to determine whether there are chromosomal regions specifically linked to compulsive hoarding behavior in families with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Methods: The authors used multipoint allele-sharing methods to assess for linkage in 219 multiplex OCD families collected as part of the OCD Collaborative Genetics Study. The authors treated compulsive hoarding as the phenotype of interest and also stratified families into those with and without two or more relatives affected with compulsive hoarding.
Results: Using compulsive hoarding as the phenotype, there was suggestive linkage to chromosome 14 at marker D14S588 (Kong and Cox logarithm of the odds ratio [LOD] [KAC(all)=2.9]). In families with two or more hoarding relatives, there was significant linkage of OCD to chromosome 14 at marker C14S1937 (KAC(all)=3.7), whereas in families with fewer than two hoarding relatives, there was suggestive linkage to chromosome 3 at marker D3S2398 (KAC(all)=2.9).
Conclusions: The findings suggest that a region on chromosome 14 is linked with compulsive hoarding behavior in families with OCD.